Good evening...I have a question....I have a contract for a pool. The plans we submitted for quotation was for a 14m direct swim line....all quotes were based on this plan. It is a freeform pool.
The salesman, when he did the diagram in the contract, put the length measurement from the furthest ends of the pool, which does not create a 14m direct swim line (it's around 12-12.5m). They dug the pool on 19/5. My husband queried the length on that day, however, they were insistent they were digging to the contract (which in fact they were, due to the incorrect labelling of it).
They came out on 20/5 to reinforce ready for concreting, however I was insistent it was not what we had been quoted on....I understand we all signed off on the contract and that's the problem. After a ton of phone calls that morning, their people on the ground said that 'the boss had taken care of it, they were trying to find an excavator to come out and remedy it to our specifications as per our original quotes, and he had provided his credit card to pay for it'.
The owner during conversations with him prior to this had said it would need to be sorted out with the salesman. The salesman has said to me on several occasions that he advised the owner that the pool would need to be lengthened as per our quotation and he wasn't sure what had gong on. I have spoken to their office at least once a week since (sometimes more) and it has never been mentioned. In fact, I had a phone conversation with the Liz in the office the week of 28/6 while I was in Sydney and she said that we could not progress to pebblecreting until the remainder of the filtration invoice was paid (there was a dispute regarding the condition of the delivered filter). She said they would not progress while there were funds owing. She also advised a new filter was being delivered on handover...based on this we made payment and in fact the filter has since been delivered and connected....so at this stage we are thinking we are good to go with the final stage and handover....how wrong we were.
We arrived home on the night of 14/7 to find an invoice for $851 for additional excavation and $365 for a variation we had had written into the contract. The $365 had been paid upfront and they have since remedied their records when I pointed this out. The $851 however is now in dispute and despite emails to them, we are not getting a response and we are being told to talk to the salesman and he committed to call back and hasn't.
My point is that this appears to be a variation, we never were advised we were going to be charged (in fact we were led to believe that the company had accepted the fact that an error had been made by the salesman), let alone how much and it is now 2 months later before they have provided us with an invoice. The invoice that was provided had no detail attached and it was only when I emailed them that night querying it that the owner came back to me with copies of the relevant invoice and an explanation of the overhead charges and what they related to.
Are we liable for this bill under the Australian Consumer Law?
The salesman, when he did the diagram in the contract, put the length measurement from the furthest ends of the pool, which does not create a 14m direct swim line (it's around 12-12.5m). They dug the pool on 19/5. My husband queried the length on that day, however, they were insistent they were digging to the contract (which in fact they were, due to the incorrect labelling of it).
They came out on 20/5 to reinforce ready for concreting, however I was insistent it was not what we had been quoted on....I understand we all signed off on the contract and that's the problem. After a ton of phone calls that morning, their people on the ground said that 'the boss had taken care of it, they were trying to find an excavator to come out and remedy it to our specifications as per our original quotes, and he had provided his credit card to pay for it'.
The owner during conversations with him prior to this had said it would need to be sorted out with the salesman. The salesman has said to me on several occasions that he advised the owner that the pool would need to be lengthened as per our quotation and he wasn't sure what had gong on. I have spoken to their office at least once a week since (sometimes more) and it has never been mentioned. In fact, I had a phone conversation with the Liz in the office the week of 28/6 while I was in Sydney and she said that we could not progress to pebblecreting until the remainder of the filtration invoice was paid (there was a dispute regarding the condition of the delivered filter). She said they would not progress while there were funds owing. She also advised a new filter was being delivered on handover...based on this we made payment and in fact the filter has since been delivered and connected....so at this stage we are thinking we are good to go with the final stage and handover....how wrong we were.
We arrived home on the night of 14/7 to find an invoice for $851 for additional excavation and $365 for a variation we had had written into the contract. The $365 had been paid upfront and they have since remedied their records when I pointed this out. The $851 however is now in dispute and despite emails to them, we are not getting a response and we are being told to talk to the salesman and he committed to call back and hasn't.
My point is that this appears to be a variation, we never were advised we were going to be charged (in fact we were led to believe that the company had accepted the fact that an error had been made by the salesman), let alone how much and it is now 2 months later before they have provided us with an invoice. The invoice that was provided had no detail attached and it was only when I emailed them that night querying it that the owner came back to me with copies of the relevant invoice and an explanation of the overhead charges and what they related to.
Are we liable for this bill under the Australian Consumer Law?
